1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to thermal transfer sheets for thermal transfer printers used as a hard copy output device in personal computers, word processors and the like, and more particularly to thermal transfer sheets which can provide prints having excellent rubbing/scratch resistance and solvent resistance when printing is carried out on various plastics under high printing energy conditions.
2. Background Art
A hot-melt thermal transfer sheet formed by coating an ink comprising a mixture of wax with a pigment on one side (surface) of a substrate film by means of a coater to form a hot-melt ink layer has hitherto been widely used as a thermal transfer sheet at the time of printing of hard copies for personal computers, word processors and the like by the thermal transfer system.
In the thermal transfer sheet having a thermal transfer ink layer composed mainly of wax, the thermal transfer sheet is imagewise heated by means of a thermal head from the back surface thereof to melt the thermal transfer ink in the thermal transfer ink layer. At that time, an image is formed on a material, on which an image is to be transferred, by taking advantage of the adhesive property of the ink layer developed by the heating. For this reason, the ink layer and the release layer each comprise a low-melting material.
Due to the use of the low-melting material, prints formed by such a thermal transfer sheet have poor rubbing and scratch resistance. Further, the resistance of the prints to various general-purpose solvents is also poor. Therefore, it is difficult to use the above thermal transfer sheet in applications where scratch resistance and solvent resistance are required, particularly in printing on plastic labels, plastic cards, plastic bags and the like.
On the other hand, printing under high printing energy conditions (high temperatures) has been proposed in order to enhance the fixability of the ink onto the surface of plastic materials. This method, however, can cause unfavorable phenomena, such as fusing of the release layer and further the substrate film onto prints due to the high temperature, tearing of the substrate film or occurrence of dropout, which is detrimental to the film formability of the surface of the print, thus resulting in a deterioration of rubbing/scratch resistance and solvent resistance of the prints.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 42891/1988 discloses a thermal printing medium comprising a substrate sheet, a transparent or semi-transparent protective layer provided on one surface of the substrate sheet and comprising a chlorinated polyolefin resin and an ink layer provided on the surface of the transparent or semi-transparent protective layer and comprising a mixture of a polymer of an acrylic or methacrylic ester with a colorant. This thermal printing medium is described to enable the formation of any image, such as bar codes and letters, on plastic articles, unattainable by the conventional thermal printing media.
In this thermal printing medium, however, the transparent or semi-transparent protective layer is provided so that it is transferred together with the ink layer to a recording medium, on which an image is to be transferred, thereby protecting the surface of the transferred ink layer, and printing under high energy printing conditions is not taken into consideration.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-described problems of the prior art and to provide a thermal transfer sheet which can provide a good print even under high energy printing conditions (not less than 0.4 mj/dot), the print being excellent also in rubbing/scratch resistance and solvent resistance.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a thermal transfer sheet which can provide a good print on the surface of plastic materials (materials on which an image is to be printed), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), vinyl chloride and acrylic plastics, print being excellent also in the rubbing/scratch resistance and solvent resistance.